Thursday, August 31, 2006

As an opening disclaimer, I'm going to admit that I'm still moderately uncomfortable using the "c" word in referring to females but, really, there is just no other way to describe the seething anger I'm feeling these days towards the worthless, right-wing pieces of offal masquerading as women in Canada who are not just protesting against the Status of Women Canada, but are doing so in ridiculously offensive and insulting ways.

One can (as I've done before) start here, at the blog of one Dianne Wood who begins badly by using not the proper acronym "SWC" but the more insulting "SOW", even admitting that it's not by accident:

Status of Women Canada (SWC is their way of calling it, I guess they don't like being called a female cow [sic]) ...

No shit, Dianne, but that didn't seem to stop you from acting like a complete jerk. And after I called Wood on that egregious bit of assholitude, try to believe she had the gall to write the following in her own comments section:

We have to all treat each other with respect. Even though I do not agree with "untraditional" lifestyles, I do have many friends who live them. I am not trying to be politically correct, just trying to come up with a way of speaking so maybe we can all learn to listen with each other.

This is apparently a usage of the word "respect" with which I am totally unfamiliar. In any event, Wood seems to want the freedom to compare Canadian women to pigs, but thinks that shouldn't stop us from sitting down and having a polite conversation.

But, Jesus Christ, that doesn't begin to compare with Hailey from Edmonton who takes it one step further and gets into a little photoshopping. But it's the comments section at that piece that really completes the picture.

There is another website - one that you came to as your referral page I believe - that is calling women who are conservative and speaking out "cunts" and myself, specifically, a "harlot".

Dear Hailey: Fuck you. If you're talking about my site, I never used that expression to describe women who were simply "conservative" and "speaking out" and you damned well know it. I used that expression specifically for a small set of Canadian, right-wing screech harpies who insisted on lowering the discourse to the point where they thought it was acceptable to compare their opponents to pigs. You call someone a "sow," I call you a "cunt." Deal with it. But it doesn't end there.

Commenter Suzanne, the batshit-crazy loon who runs the "fetal rights" blog "Blue Wave Canada," has also established that she aspires to the cunthood with the first comment at Hailey's site:

I love that post. And the picture.

I think I might use that.

Sure, why not? I imagine that, in Suzanne's world, that somehow qualifies as civil discourse as well. And Suzanne turns out to be just as dishonest as Hailey when she writes:

You should see all the snark we get on the Canadian blogosphere. Check out Canadian Cynic and Stageleft for samples.

Sure, Suzanne -- why don't you and your readers check out my site for samples? Let me recommend the posts where I point out the hypocrisy of your complaining about SWC being government-funded while not saying a fucking thing about how the taxpayers are also involuntarily funding the Catholic school system in Ontario. I'm still waiting to hear back about that, but I'm guessing you're a bit busy, given that being such a fucking martyr is a full-time job and all.

I could go on but I'm going to give Hullabaloo's Digby the last word as he writes about the "Angry, Angry Left" from an American perspective:

Please, please spare me the crocodile tears about leftist incivility. We are living in a political world formed by rightwing commentators who have made a fetish of harsh eliminationist rhetoric hammered over and over again into the ether until it sounds like normal discourse. And we've been waiting for more than a decade for the mainstream media to notice that rightwing celebrity pundits, who reach millions upon millions of listeners and viewers a day, routinely accuse liberals of treason and celebrate our deaths. It's made us a little bit testy. When important news outlets like the Washington Post see "leftist incivility" as a topic worthy of the rending of garments and gnashing of teeth it makes us wonder if they are even living in the same universe we do.

Famous and wealthy toxic political commentators like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly are routinely lauded as normal mainstream partisans while ordinary readers of the Washington Post are excoriated for incivility when they complain about inaccurate coverage that benefits Republicans. This is bizarro world. It is insane. It is a sign of a very sick political culture.

No shit. It takes a special kind of gall to compare your opponents to pigs, then complain about a subsequent lack of civility in the blogosphere.

Let me give you some advice, Dianne, Hailey and Suzanne. There's a whole bunch of us who are thoroughly fed up with your hypocritical bullshit regarding civility, and we're just not going to play nice anymore. I suggest you get used to it.

BONUS TRACK: Ohmigosh, I forgot all about this gem where Dianne (she of the "Let's call them SOWs even though we know it pisses them off" philosophy) writes in the comments section:

Why are you intolerant to another women's point of view? We can live together, as we have been. I just object to my tax money being used to support something I do not believe in. Status of Women should raise money thtough their supporters just as REAL Women does, then we will all be equally represented. We can live together in peace and harmony.

Yes, peace and harmony. And if Dianne calls you a "sow," it's only because she cares, right?

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

It's fascinating to see what you'd learn if you got your news from just the Blogging Tories and nowhere else. For instance, consider today's exploding story -- the $450 million softwood lumber "slush fund" ripoff.

This is delightfully timely. As a refresher, recall how so many of Canada's wankers have their Underoos in a bunch over the government funding of Status of Women Canada (like this one, who is just as much of a dickwad as stupid cunt Dianne Wood in insisting in referring to SWC as "SOW" 'cuz, hey, that's like totally, totally funny if you're into infantile toilet humour, ya know):

One wonders what exactly SOW has been doing with its $23 million a year to improve the lot of Canadian women. The only women's lot who have been improved, it seems, would be those who work for SOW and get grant money from it.

$23 million per year? Outrageous, they say. A waste of money, they say. So one just can't wait for the wanker outrage once this hits the fan over at Assclown Central, right?

Alison alerts us to the flap going on at Daily Kos over this diary: Canada Forks Over $450 Million Donation to Repugs. The diary reports that the softwood deal "negotiated by Bush and his Canadian lackey, Harper will see $450 million funnelled straight past Congress and the US treasury, and will go instead, directly to the Bush Whitehouse".

$450 million. Gosh, you'd think that, if a mere $23 million can get the assclowns all worked up, surely that much larger amount is just going to have them foaming at the mouth and biting the heads off live kittens in pure outrage, wouldn't it? Not really.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

There comes a point where even the pretense of acting civilly to some of the more vile forms of life in the wankersphere just isn't worth the trouble anymore.

Back here, I took a whack at Canadian wingnut Dianne Wood for bitching and moaning about her taxes going to fund the Status of Women Canada (SWC) even while, as a Catholic living in Ontario, she was getting taxpayers to help foot the bill for her religion and Catholic school system.

Tragically, while I linked to one of her web sites, I failed to link to the other one which demonstrates what kind of repulsive jackass Ms. Wood really is.

In particular, one should really read this recent piece, which opens as offensively as possible with the title "The old SOW has got to go." Apparently, this is what passes for wit in the Canadian wankersphere -- insisting on using "SOW" instead of the more proper "SWC" to refer to the group in question.

And this isn't an unintentional oversight on Ms. Wood's part. Further down, she makes it clear that she's rather enjoying herself when she writes:

Status of Women Canada (SWC is their way of calling it, I guess they don't like being called a female cow) ...

That's right, Ms. Wood -- maybe they don't care for that acronym, which is why they didn't pick it in the first place. But if it's now fair game to make up demeaning references to other entities, hey, I can play that game, too.

You're a stupid cunt, Ms. Wood.

Oh, I'll bet even some of my regular fans are not going to be happy with that but there comes a point when civility is a total waste of time, as with ignorant cunts like Ms. Wood. If Wood thinks productive discourse involves making intentional comparisons between feminists and "female cows," then she really has no moral standing to get upset when I decide that she's a closed-minded, worthless cunt, does she?

So that's how this game is going to be played. It's no longer simply "Dianne Wood." Nope, from now on, it's going to be "stupid cunt Dianne Wood." But I will make one concession. At least I won't compare her to livestock.

"And given that the case against confessed JonBenet Ramsey murderer John Mark Karr has collapsed entirely, it seems fair to ask: Is today's media ridiculously obsessed with hyping non-news to the point of absurdity, with no idea of when to just let it go? Today, on CNN, we begin a week-long series ..."

Every so often, you read something so irritating that you just want to chew on a ball of tin-foil to take your mind off of how hacked off you are. Like over here, where we have commenter Dianne Wood who writes of the recent suggestion to defund the Status of Women Canada:

Why are you intolerant to another women's point of view? We can live together, as we have been. I just object to my tax money being used to support something I do not believe in.

Yes, Dianne, let's talk about tax money being spent to support things I don't believe in. Like, say, the fact that religion in Canada is tax-exempt. That kind of pisses me off -- that my tax dollars are going to prop up the churches. Why the fuck should I have to work so that those parasites can get a free ride?

Of course, the most amusing part of all of this is that, if you follow the links, you can end up at Dianne's blog where you learn she lives in Newmarket, Ontario and writes about Opus Dei. Yes, it takes a really breathtaking level of assholitude to be a Catholic living in Ontario and still complain about how your tax dollars are being used for things you disapprove of.

Ooooooh ... now there's a blast from the past. Over in the comments section of the PB piece on the recent freeping of their online poll on SWC, we have commenter Polly Jones taking it to the general population of progressive dudes, to wit:

And, to be frank, I have seen that the many of the male "progressive" bloggers have very little appreciation for women's views - we are eqaul so long as we are in line with liberal mandates. No thanks.

Polly has a good point. Let's ignore my numerous posts on topics like abortion, contraception, "pro-life" pharmacists and the like with which I'm sure my regular readers are familiar. See, I don't get any credit for stuff like that from Ms. Jones 'cuz, well, I use bad words.

Which is neither nor there but it does suggest that, the next time Ms. Jones wants to whine and moan about the lack of progressive male bloggers who take an interest in womens' rights, she might not want to thoroughly piss off the alleged few of us who do. I'm just sayin', ya know.

What did you expect, guys? Did you seriously think to run an online survey that would generate meaningful results? Jesus, what colour is the sky on your planet?Of course it was going to be manipulated. And it was going to be manipulated by the Right to skew the results in one direction, in exactly the same fashion that it was going to be manipulated by you folks by posting that survey on a progressive blog in the first place which would tend the skew the results the other way.

And are you surprised that the manipulation was egged on by Canada's own Crazy-Assed Racist Redneck? Oh, please -- she has a talent for that sort of thing, as you can see here, where she not only encourages readers to specifically vote for that dimwit Preston Manning, but even encourages them to vote once a day, within the technical bounds of the voting process.

So what's the problem? Both of those are online polls; therefore, they're both equally worthless. Accept it and move on. Whining about it is really quite unbecoming, you know.

"The only time France wants us to go to war is when the German Army is sitting in Paris sipping coffee." -- Regis Philbin

"The French are a smallish, monkey-looking bunch and not dressed any better, on average, than the citizens of Baltimore. True, you can sit outside in Paris and drink little cups of coffee, but why this is more stylish than sitting inside and drinking large glasses of whisky I don't know." -- P.J. O'Rourke

"You know, the French remind me a little bit of an aging actress of the 1940s who was still trying to dine out on her looks but doesn't have the face for it." -- U.S. Senator John McCain

"You know why the French don't want to bomb Saddam Hussein? Because he hates America, he loves mistresses and wears a beret. He is French, people." -- Conan O'Brien

"I don't know why people are surprised that France won't help us get Saddam out of Iraq after all. The last time the French asked for 'more proof' it came marching into Paris under a German flag." -- David Letterman

"Only thing worse than a Frenchman is a Frenchman who lives in Canada." -- Ted Nugent

"War without France would be like, well, World War II." -- Unknown

"The favorite bumper sticker in Washington D.C. right now is one that says 'First Iraq, then France.'" -- Tom Brokaw

"What do you expect from a culture and a nation that exerted more of its national will fighting against Disney World and Big Macs than the Nazis?" -- Dennis Miller

"It is important to remember that the French have always been there when they needed us." -- Alan Kent

"They've taken their own precautions against al-Qaida. To prepare for an attack, each Frenchman is urged to keep duct tape, a white flag, and a three-day supply of mistresses in the house." -- Argus Hamilton

"Somebody was telling me about the French Army rifle that was being advertised on eBay the other day - the description was, 'Never shot, Dropped once.'" -- Rep. Roy Blunt, MO

"The French will only agree to go to war when we've proven we've found truffles in Iraq." -- Dennis Miller

"Raise your right hand if you like the French, raise both hands if you are French." -- Unknown

Q. What did the mayor of Paris say to the German Army as they entered the city in WWII? A. Table for 100,000, m'sieur?

"Do you know how many Frenchmen it takes to defend Paris? No one knows, it's never been tried." -- Rep. R. Blount, MO

"Do you know it only took Germany three days to conquer France in WWII? And that's because it was raining." -- John Xereas, Manager, DC Improv

The AP and UPI reported that the French Government announced after the London bombings that it has raised its terror alert level from Run to Hide. The only two higher levels in France are Surrender and Collaborate. The rise in the alert level was precipitated by a recent fire which destroyed France's white flag factory, effectively disabling their military.

French Ban Fireworks at Euro Disney (AP), Paris, March 5, 2003. The French Government announced today that it is imposing a ban on the use of fireworks at Euro Disney. The decision comes the day after a nightly fireworks display at the park, located just 30 miles outside of Paris, caused the soldiers at a nearby French Army garrison to surrender to a group of Czech tourists. France wouldn't help us get Hitler out of France, either." -- Jay Leno

Saturday, August 26, 2006

. . . It takes two to quagmire. In Vietnam, America had an enemy that enjoyed significant popular support and effective supply lines. Neither is true in Iraq. Isolated atrocities will continue to happen in the days ahead, as dwindling numbers of the more depraved Ba'athists confront the totality of their irrelevance. But these are the death throes: the regime was decapitated two weeks ago, and what we've witnessed is the last random thrashing of the snake's body . . .

... Screw them. Tie Bush around their necks, tie Iraq around their necks, like a fucking millstone, and let's watch the whole conservative, paleo or neo, sink deep into the ocean trenches. You failed, boys. Failed badly.

And one of the consequences of failing this badly is that you have to shut up and let actual adults take charge and clean this shit up. I don't give a rat's ass whether you're ready to live with it. Sit down, and don't raise your hand again until you have something useful to say.

Because, really, there's not much point in trying to have an intelligent discussion with these folks anymore. Telling them to just sit down and shut the fuck up is no less than they deserve.

AH, HOW CONVENIENT: Glenn Greenwald carefully reaches into his bag and selects a 5-iron, then goes to work on Steyn.

Friday, August 25, 2006

In which your humble correspondent is getting ready for 10 days of California, which means blogging will be a bit erratic for the next little while so I'm expecting you slackers to pick up the ... uh ... slack.

There's a terrific scene in the movie "Twelve Angry Men" where Henry Fonda, in order to demonstrate that someone yelling "I'm gonna kill you!" may not really mean it, goads the character played by Lee J. Cobb until Cobb explodes in anger and has to be restrained by two of the other jurors, all the while yelling "I'm gonna kill him!", until he finally realizes that he's just proved Fonda's point.

Later, at the water cooler, Cobb tries to shrug it off, telling the juror played by E. G. Marshall, "Ah, that didn't mean nothing. He was just trying to bait me, that's all." To which Marshall, in a delicious deadpan, replies, "He did an excellent job."

Which, naturally, brings us to The 101st Chairborne, who never seem to tire of wetting themselves in fear over each and every mention of dark-skinned people with funny names doing anything untoward. And given that the entire purpose of terrorism is to terrify, one can safely say of the terrorists, they're doing an excellent job, aren't they?

I'm betting Joel Johannesen over at "Proud to be Epsilon-Minuses" is going to have one unhappy, little wingnut on his hands, as one of his star bloggers and world-renowned screech harpy Ann Coulter had her bony, little ass handed to her on "Hannity and Colmes."

[The U.S.] Congress appears ready to slash funding for the research and treatment of brain injuries caused by bomb blasts, an injury that military scientists describe as a signature wound of the Iraq war.

House and Senate versions of the 2007 Defense appropriation bill contain $7 million for the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center — half of what the center received last fiscal year...

"Honestly, they would have loved to have funded it, but there were just so many priorities," says Jenny Manley, spokeswoman for the Senate Appropriations Committee. "They didn't have any flexibility in such a tight fiscal year."...

Zitnay asked for $19 million, and 34 Democratic and six Republican members of Congress signed a letter endorsing the budget request.

“The [U.S.] government awarded 70 percent of its contracts for Hurricane Katrina work without full competition, wasting hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in the process,” according to a new report from the House Committee on Government Reform’s minority office.

For full marks, discuss the possible connection between these two incidents.

For bonus marks, suggest which sorry piece of shit should spend the rest of his life at hard labour breaking rocks over this breathtaking corruption. It is not necessary to single out a specific individual -- identifying a political party in general will be sufficient.

In another amazing liberal media feat, a “news” story picked-up by the Vancouver Sun (Canwest Global) has managed to base a story on Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai on gaseous nothingness or what we in the Non-Liberal-Left Total BS-Spotting trade call, ”ether“. This is in contradistinction to the Liberal-left’s other sources for stories, which is described as ”wishful thinking based on our severely liberal-left world view“.

Uh huh. The day I take advice from Canada's conservatives on the dangers of weaving entire stories out of thin air is the day I take lessons in civility and multiculturalism from Kate McMillan.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

A Colorado geography teacher “was placed on paid administrative on the second day of school for hanging several flags from other countries [China and Mexico] in his classroom.” The teacher said he hung the flags “as reference tools for world geography,” but under Colorado law it is illegal to permanently display foreign flags in public schools.

Not to worry. It's Colorado -- they make up for their ignorance in world geography with their ignorance in biological evolution.

Fucking A. Now if we could just get some video of Minister of the Environment Rona Ambrose chowing down on some spotted owl kebab, we could get rid of that worthless airhead as well.AND THE SPIN BEGINS: Not surprisingly, the Blogging Tory soft-pedaling has already started, with commenter Jeff writing:

But surely you're not suggesting that this is on par with Nash and the Lib guy who resigned, are you?

I think there might be a little bit of difference between a guy who was duped into talking to an organization going under a false name and a couple of MPs traveling halfway across the world to organize a Hezbollah pep rally.

Yes, by God, how dare you compare those two situations, which are totally different. Totally.

THE FUN NEVER ENDS, DOES IT? And over at Assclown Central, Matt McGuire tries his hand at damage control:

A recent email suggests that the Atom feed for this blog is not working anymore. I haven't changed anything lately so I have no idea what might be happening. As an experiment, I reconfigured the feed from "Short" to "Full" to see if that makes any difference (besides the obvious, that is).

Some senior Bush administration officials and top Republican lawmakers are voicing anger that American spy agencies have not issued more ominous warnings about the threats that they say Iraq Iran presents to the United States.

Some policy makers have accused intelligence agencies of playing down Iraq's Iran’s role in al-Qaeda's Hezbollah’s recent attacks against the U.S. Israel and overestimating the time it would take for Iraq Iran to build a nuclear weapon...

The New York Times: Because there's a fine line between plagiarism and effective time management.

A public school division in Winkler, Man., will have to review its mission statement, following a request from the Manitoba Human Rights Commission to change its Christian-themed declaration.

The Garden Valley School Division's mission statement says schools operate "in partnership with the home, church and community" based on Christian principles, among other things.

In its letter of May 31, the commission said it was concerned with the division's statement of partnership with the church and its reference to education based on Christian principles.

OK, so there's a "mission statement" but it's not like there's anything religiously untoward happening, right?

"We don't have any religious instruction in our schools, either before or after school hours," he said.

See? Not an issue whatsoever. No religious instruction in the school. Not before. Not after. Case closed. End of discussion. Problem solved.

"We do have religious exercises at the request of parents, outside of the instruction of the day. They would take the form of three- to five-minute devotionals which would probably be a Bible reading and the Lord's Prayer."

Well ... alright, maybe just a teeny, weeny bit. But, as we all know, those Mennonites are busy folks, and sometimes it's tough to find 3 to 5 minutes of down time to do that sort of thing off of school property.

I have an idea, though. It occurs to me that all of this could be resolved if, somehow, the folks who wanted to be religious could, perhaps, arrange a location off of public property to hold their religious devotionals. Maybe somewhere they could meet on a regular basis that has nothing to do with the public school system, where they could worship as they wanted, free from any possible entanglement with a taxpayer-funded, educational system, and which would solve any potential conflicts between religion and government.

OK, this is just plain weird -- an Israeli family living in Canada is refusing to be deported ... back to Israel? What's up with that?

Immigration authorities say they are still determined to deport an Israeli family who have sought sanctuary in a Newfoundland church basement.

So what's the problem? Some sort of threat to life or well-being if they return to Israel?

A humanitarian application filed on behalf of the Portnoy family was rejected this week, just days after Angela Portnoy gave birth to the family's fifth child.

"Humanitarian?" OK, so no life-threatening issues here. Then what?

A key element of the Portnoys' appeal is the future of the five children. Three of them were born in Canada, although Cohen emphasizes that three of the children require medical attention — including one for cystic fibrosis and another for language therapy.

I'm sorry -- they want to stay because they'll get better medical care? What, they don't have doctors and health care and language therapists in Israel? Here, let me give you Israelis some advice -- stop spending so much fucking money every year on tanks and guns and missiles and bullets and fighter jets and attack helicopters, and invest more of it in a decent health care system, and stop leaching off of ours.

I love the irony: "Support Israel," but not to the extent of actually, you know, wanting to live there.THE PRE-EMPTIVE IRONY STRIKE. I figured it wouldn't take long before someone picked up on that "kids were born in Canada" meme, but I thought I'd be polite and wait for it to surface first.

I haven't seen any mention of this story over at Assclown Central yet but, if any of them try that rationalization for fighting the deportation, that will be irony of the highest order.

See, if you read the article, you'll notice that the family has been resisting the deportation since 2004, but the mother just gave birth to a son. So, to begin with, one can fairly ask what kind of mother decides to get pregnant and have yet another child in the midst of fighting a deportation order? But that's not the best part.

The idea of non-citizens coming into the country and having children just for the sake of the subsequent citizenship is absolutely infuriating to right-wing Americans, to the extent that they've coined a derogatory phrase for such children -- "anchor babies." And from that article, you can tell that America's wankers are none too happy with what they see as a gaping loophole in the citizenship laws.

So it's going to be entertaining to see if Canada's wankers pick up on this story and actually take advantage of this feature to criticize the deportation order. After all, you know as well as I do that, if the mother in question had been Nicaraguan or Guatemalan or Vietnamese, all of those same Blogging Tories would be fighting for the chance to personally drive that woman and her squalling brats to the airport for the first flight out. But since she's Israeli ... now what? Oh, man, you can just smell the cognitive dissonance from here, can't you?

How about we all just grab a coffee, pull up a chair, lean back and, with any luck, watch the BTs tie themselves in knots arguing against their normal, anti-immigrant tendencies. Where else are you going to get that kind of entertainment without having to pay for it?

You know, I really had no interest in getting into the middle of this dick-slapping contest but, seriously, there comes a time when one must take a stand. Over here, Jason is just being a dishonest wank when he writes of Robert McClelland:

Suffice it to say that I am not too concerned when a man who wrote "fuck the Jews" on his website accuses me of being anti-Semitic because of some misleading wordplay on his part:

So did Robert really write "Fuck the Jews" on his web site? Why, yes -- yes, he did. So let's look at the context, shall we?

I just took a can of spraypaint and wrote that message on the side of a building (not owned by Jews). Have I committed an act of antisemitism and if so why? Answers of "yes, just because it is" are not acceptable.

Can anyone answer this question or has everyone been so conditioned to accept, without explanation as to why, that whatever you're told is antisemitic must be antisemitic.

Well, how about that? As anyone with a functioning brain stem can see, Robert is presenting that expression in the context of a thought experiment and challenging his readers to address a reasonably meaningful issue without descending into moronic, sophomoric, right-wing talking points, if that's even possible these days.

Thusly, therefore and to wit, Robert is asking an uncomfortable but important question and Jason is being a total prat. Q.E.D.

P.S. If I accuse the Jewish Alan Dershowitz of being an amoral, conscienceless monster, does that make me anti-Semitic? Discuss. Be concise. Give examples. Show your work.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

[The U.S.] Congress appears ready to slash funding for the research and treatment of brain injuries caused by bomb blasts, an injury that military scientists describe as a signature wound of the Iraq war.

House and Senate versions of the 2007 Defense appropriation bill contain $7 million for the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center — half of what the center received last fiscal year...

"Honestly, they would have loved to have funded it, but there were just so many priorities," says Jenny Manley, spokeswoman for the Senate Appropriations Committee. "They didn't have any flexibility in such a tight fiscal year."...

Zitnay asked for $19 million, and 34 Democratic and six Republican members of Congress signed a letter endorsing the budget request.

In other words, the Republican-controlled Congress somehow couldn't squeeze out another $12 million for brain-damaged Iraq war veterans 'cuz, you know, money's tight and all. So what is at the top of their agenda these days? Ah, here we go:

Republican senators have failed to secure enough votes to back a bill that would have permanently repealed estate taxes in the US...

Estate taxes are dubbed an unfair "death tax" by Republicans.

Democrats counter that the tax is fair and that a repeal would cost $1 trillion (£542bn) over 10 years.

The GOP: Because you can never be too rich. Or too fucking callous for words.

Stealing shamelessly from Dave over at TGB, we have the American neo-con circle jerk finally asking the pertinent question -- "Is Bush an Idiot?" (direct YouTube video link)-- a question that, we should point out, was asked and answered by Francoise Ducros back in 2002.

The conservative movement: Finally coming around to left-wing thinking -- it just takes them a bit longer.

Um, no, Xavier, my boy. There's a serious difference between marshalling our arguments and proceeding to intellectually eviscerate your claims, and pointing at you in wide-eyed amazement and snorting in disbelief while Diet Coke streams out of our noses and we gasp for breath in between howls of hysterical laughter.

The carpeted room is full of children in skullcaps crouched on prayer mats, reciting verses from a holy text. Some mumble the words under their breath; others sing them out. They rock back and forth as they chant, their disparate voices blending into an ethereal melody.

The children, ages 7 to 14, are full-time students, in class 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, even in the summer. But they are not studying math, science or English. Instead, they are memorizing all 6,200 verses in the Koran, a task that usually takes two to three years...

Making the work even more difficult, the students, for the most part, do not understand what they are reciting. Muslims believe the Koran was spoken to the prophet Muhammad by the angel Gabriel in Arabic. Because it is seen as the literal word of God, the use of translations is frowned upon. Students know how to pronounce the words but mostly do not know what they mean.

At which point, I'm sure we can all appreciate the howling amusement value in students mindlessly repeating sounds of which they have no comprehension whatsoever.

Monday, August 21, 2006

I defy you to get through this piece of neo-con swill without hurling.JUST BECAUSE I FEEL LIKE IT. It's not like you need to invest any time disemboweling the utter rubbish in the article above but, what the fuck, let's pick on a single claim and tear it a new orifice, shall we? How about this one:

Moreover, President Bush’s five-year $15 billion commitment under the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief is the largest commitment by a single nation toward an international health initiative - ever - working in over 100 (mostly African) countries.

Honestly, every time you think you've met the absolutely dumbest right-wing wank imaginable, it turns out you have to re-calibrate your wank-o-meter. It never fails, does it?

OH NO ... AH BEEN DISSED. Awwwwww ... isn't that adorable? Over at his blog, Xavier's first comment is ... Xavier, commenting on my comment on his original commentary.

Tell you what, X -- if you can put that devilishly-clever snark back in its holster for just a minute, what say you address the issue I raised about how the U.S.'s vaunted $15 billion commitment to African AIDS is a pile of crap? Or does that run perilously close to doing actual research on your part?

We wouldn't want you to strain yourself intellectually.

BY THE WAY, XAVIER, I love your idea of the U.S. going all isolationist on everyone to teach them a lesson. So how exactly would you suggest they address this issue?

The United States imports 58 percent of the oil it consumes. Federal officials project that by 2025, the country will have to import 68 percent of its oil to meet demand. At best, analysts say, the energy legislation would slightly slow that rate of growth of dependence.

Yeah, X -- the U.S. is a net importer of oil, and in a major way. How do you figure they're suddenly going to make up for a 58 percent shortfall in oil?

A Winnipeg doctor is demanding an official apology and compensation from United Airlines after being kicked off a flight in the U.S. this week, an incident he has characterized as "institutionalized discrimination." Dr. Ahmed Farooq, a Muslim, was escorted off an airplane in Denver on Tuesday. According to Farooq, reciting his evening prayers was interpreted by one passenger as an activity that was suspicious...

Farooq said the allegation came from a passenger who appeared drunk and had previously threatened him during the trip.

When flight personnel were alerted, the 27-year-old radiology resident and two colleagues — a man and a woman — were taken off their flight. They had been returning from a conference in San Francisco.

Farooq said that even officials from the Transportation Security Administration soon realized the flight crew had overreacted, but by the time that conclusion had been reached the trio were forced to stay in Denver for the night and catch a flight the next day — at their own expense.

But it's not just that one-time inconvenience that would concern me. Because I'm betting that Farooq's name is now on a no-fly, extra-security, treat-with-caution list off of which it will never, ever, ever be removed, regardless of how much United Airlines apologizes.

At this point, "sorry" doesn't even begin to make up for this kind of idiocy.

According to Canada's wingnut-o-sphere, private medical care is a peachy keen idea because there are horrendous wait times for some procedures and private clinics would take some of the pressure off public facilities and, after all, reducing wait times was one of the CPoC's "five priorities" (that is, until it disappeared down the memory hole) and, naturally, in order to be fair, the costs of those private treatments would still be covered by Canada's heathcare system, so it's a win-win for everyone and, by gosh, aren't we thinking outside the box for clever and innovative solutions to the current healthcare crisis?The implementation:

Tax-payer funded death

Province to refund abortions

Why this news should worry both the left and the right:

It should worry the left because this ruling sets a precedent that the government must pay for people's use of private clinics.

It should worry the right because this ruling sets a precedent that the government must pay for people's use of private clinics.

For $@%t sake. It's one thing to support abortion. It's an entirely differnt thing to take someone else's money and use it for your own abortion because you don't feel like paying for it yourself. It's especially a sham since there's such strong disagreement over abortion.

Canada's conservatives: Guaranteeing your right to timely, publicly-funded medical care, one carefully-selected, right wing-approved procedure at a time.

AFTERSNARK: Make sure you read the comments section at that article, in which commenter "Gayle" stands out as a paragon of logic and clear thought in a lagoon of addle-brained stupidity. I'm thinking a few years in Gitmo might straighten her out.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

"Time for my own poll. Is there any question so wacky that one-third of the population will not answer it in the affirmative?

Hey, here's one: How many Americans think Commander Chimpy is doing a good job?

An Associated Press-Ipsos poll conducted this week found the president's approval rating has dropped to 33 percent, matching his low in May. His handling of nearly every issue, from theIraq war to foreign policy, contributed to the president's decline around the nation, even in the Republican-friendly South.

Sometimes, you have to go looking for a straight line. And sometimes the straight line comes to you.

It's always moderately amusing (in a bloody train wreck kind of way) to watch what happens when folks in the wanker echo chamber are presented with a slightly different perspective. Over here at Crazy-Assed Racist Redneck's place, we have a piece on witches and witch-hunters which would seem to be at least superficially relevant these days. However, Kate's commenters are having none of this treasonous shit.

Commenter Mark from Ottawa writes, in part:

And dear Mr Harris, as so often, cannot get basic facts right...

And the Rosenbergs were convicted in 1951, not 1950.experts.about.com/e/e/et/Ethel_and_Julius_Rosenberg.htm

Yes, by God, how on earth can you take seriously the shrieking, leftist, moonbat rantings of someone who can't even get something as simple as that correct? Because, as we all know, a factual error of that magnitude would naturally cast doubt on absolutely everything else such a person might write. With some exceptions, of course.

Commenter "Maple stump," on the other hand, prefers the succinct approach:

The author is obviously perturbed, hence potentially dangerous. Maybe 3-5 years at Gitmo Spa & Resort would make him understand a thing or two...

Guantanamo Bay: Because if we allow differences of opinion, the terrorists will have won.

Saturday, August 19, 2006

As a parting shot to the earlier post on Bush's wiretapping, we have both Jonathan Strong and commenter "Matt" agreeing on one simple idea:

"More importantly, I hope the ACLU and Judge Taylor are willing to take responsibility should another terrorist attack occur on American soil"

hear, hear!

Good point, guys. So who takes responsibility for those 3,000 deaths back on Sept. 11, 2001? Who do we blame for that? Come on ... you obviously can't wait to find a scapegoat for some future, hypothetical terrorist-inflicted deaths, so you shouldn't have any problem figuring out who's ass should be on the line for all those murders that already happened, right?

Who might be responsible for those? Could it be the people who were actually in charge of the country at the time? Could it be the man who was handed a Presidential Daily Briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the U.S.", and immediately went on a month-long vacation?

Come on, boys. You're so fucking stoked to be ready to do some finger pointing based on what might happen in the future, so let's hear it -- who's to blame for 3,000 Americans that are already dead?

Or does that question make you just a wee bit uncomfortable?BY THE WAY, all of those wankers who can't seem to talk about terrorism without hyper-ventilating themselves into a coma should be asked the following simple question: "What is it that the Bush administration could do before the recent court ruling that they're not allowed to do now?"

It is a simple question, isn't it? But I'm willing to bet that not one of those hysterical airheads can come up with an actual, meaningful answer.

Garth Turner to run as an independent if he loses the Halton nomination to the "Righteous Right"?

So, to recap (and according to the Canadian wingnut-o-sphere), when Belinda Stronach leaves the CPC and crosses the floor, she's a trashy, politically opportunistic whore while, on the other hand, when David Emerson bolts to the CPC the day after winning his seat, he's nobly answering the call to public service.

Similarly, while that same wingnut-o-sphere has no problem with Joe Lieberman losing his Connecticut Democratic primary and then choosing to run as an independent, if Garth Turner does the same thing ... well, fill in the blanks.

Like I said, I can't wait for the historical revisionism to hit the fan on this one.

Friday, August 18, 2006

Back here, commenter Simon points out that blogger Glenn Greenwald already has a lengthy post that disembowels the gamut of asinine, ignorant, illogical and stupefyingly uninformed right-wing talking points related to the recent smackdown of Commander Chimpy's unconstitutional snooping program.

In fact, I knew about Greenwald's blog entry when I posted that earlier piece but I thought I'd hold onto that gem as part of a little experiment in conservative bubblethink.

Only minutes after I linked to Strong Conservative's piece, I also submitted a short comment to that same article under the name "Anonymous" -- a comment which consisted of nothing more than the words "No, they didn't," where the last two words were a link to Greenwald's posting. I was informed that comments at Mr. Strong's site are moderated, so I thought it would be amusing to sit back and see how long it took before Mr. Strong finally released my comment.

As you can see, there's nothing vulgar, profane or inflammatory about my little comment, so there's little reason why any moderator wouldn't accept it. And yet, here we are, some 20 hours later, and still no comment. Am I surprised? Not really.

I will, of course, be chided by folks complaining that, hey, give the man time, he probably has better things to do. I'm sure he does, but I consider that a particularly flimsy excuse. If you have a blog, and you offer a public comments section, then there's at least a small moral obligation to allow people to comment there (within reason, of course).

If you allow open comments, terrific. But if you choose to manually moderate your comments, then I think you have a responsibility to be timely in reviewing and accepting or rejecting submissions. Things happen so quickly in the blogosphere that it's unacceptable to allow quick-reaction comments to languish in a queue somewhere while the news cycle moves on and the story drops off the front page.

As it is, Mr. Strong has had his piece up since yesterday, accompanied by two complimentary comments, while anyone who might have submitted a dissenting view has been put on hold. How convenient. And how totally goddamned gutless.

To Mr. Strong (and other right-wing bloggers like, oh, Adam Daifallah who are such fucking pussies that they can't handle a little give-and-take in their comments section), let me suggest that you either grow a pair and accept what comes (again, within some reasonable boundaries of civility), or just remove your comments sections entirely.

With some exceptions, having a moderated comments section is just another way of saying you're too much of a fucking coward to deal with other folks' opinions. But I guess that's the whole point of the wanker echo chamber, isn't it?

AFTERSNARK: As "canucklehead" points out, a flurry of comments was suddenly approved at SC's site, including mine which is the third one. Why I bothered to comment is a mystery since not a single person after that addressed the claims in Greenwald's piece to which I linked.

As the saying goes, trying to educate a wanker is like trying to teach a pig to sing. It's a waste of time and it annoys the pig.

Shorter Canadian Air Transport Security Authority: "Dear terrorists: Attached please find an explanation of our new security restrictions, including a detailed list of what is still acceptable to bring on board and in precisely what types of containers. Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter."

As a demonstration of how he's just a fair-and-balanced kind of guy, Mike sucks it up and takes GOP Sen. George Allen to task for his recent racist comments since, as Mike writes, "I've attacked the left for various examples of racism they've displayed recently, so it's only fair I hold one of my own accountable to [sic], in order to be fair."

Good for you, Mike. So I can't wait to read what you have to say about this. Last time I looked, while those of us on the Left might make the occasional tacky or tasteless remark, we generally draw the line at assaulting people with pool cues, throwing them through glass doors and breaking their bones. It's just the way we are.AND THE FUN NEVER ENDS: Today's WaPo has a number of letters regarding Allen's racial insult, my favourite being this one in his defense from Sophia A. Nelson of Brambleton:

Mr. Allen is a good man who made a mistake in rendering someone's name wrong.

Sure. The young man's name is "Sidarth" and Allen referred to him as "Macaca." I make that mistake all the time, but normally it takes a few drinks.

JESUS CHRIST, is this kind of stupidity contagious? Do you get it from shaking hands at GOP conventions or something? Go read.

After you process this, I'm sure you'll agree that the Blogging Tories desperately need to produce another spate of articles on the shrieking, lunatic, moonbat Left. After all, that's what being "fair and balanced" is all about.

Forget "compassionate conservatism." While you're at it, toss the "reformer with results." Education, taxes, welfare reform -- none of those things really matter. For George W. Bush, one issue matters: loyalty. You're with him or you're not. There's no in-between... Loyalty has been a recurring theme of Bush's campaign for the White House...

Q Does the President support the Republican candidate for Senate in Connecticut?

MR. SNOW: The President supports the democratic process in the state of Connecticut, and wishes them a successful election in November.

Q Wait a minute. I realize he supports democracy, but I'm wondering, does he actually support his own party's candidate?

MR. SNOW: I know that's not news --

Q Why aren't you committing -- why wouldn't the President commit support for the Republican candidate in that --

MR. SNOW: I don't know. Why do you ask? Is there something about the candidate that I should know about that would lead to judgments?

Q I'm just asking you --

MR. SNOW: No, that's just a --

Q -- it seems like a very natural thing, why wouldn't he support a member of his own party? Is it because he's well behind in the polls? Is it because the President likes Joe Lieberman? What's -- why not?

MR. SNOW: There may be -- there are a whole host of reasons the President -- I'm just not going to play.

I see an unfortunate accident in someone's future. I'm thinking of starting a pool.

About 300 Alaska-based soldiers sent home from Iraq just before their unit's deployment was extended last month must now go back, the Army said Monday, setting up a wrenching departure for troops and families who thought their service there was finished.

As George W. Bush likes to say, "We will not cut and run." And by "we," he means "you." But you knew that already, right?

Amid the political and diplomatic fallout from Israel’s faltering invasion of Lebanon, some Israeli officials are privately blaming President George W. Bush for egging Prime Minister Ehud Olmert into the ill-conceived military adventure against the Hezbollah militia in south Lebanon.

Taking military advice from George W. Bush. What can possibly go wrong?

Three Palestinian men were arrested by the FBI with assistance from Detroit and other local law enforcement. They were suspected of planning to attack the Mackinac Bridge in norther Michigan which links the upper and lower penninsulas and is one of the largest bridges in North America.

Meanwhile, Michigan officials kept three Texans locked up even after Michigan state police and FBI officials said they were apparently wide-eyed tourists rather than would-be terrorists when they photographed the Mackinac Bridge.

The men -- brothers Adham Othman, 21, of Dallas and Louai Othman, 23, of Mesquite, and their cousin Awad Muhareb, 18, of Mesquite -- were stopped by police Friday outside a Wal-Mart store in Caro with about 1,000 cellphones in their van.

Local prosecutors charged them with collecting or providing materials for terrorist acts and surveillance of a vulnerable target for terrorist purposes.

The FBI questioned them for several hours after their arrest, then released a statement saying that "there is no imminent threat" to the bridge, which links Michigan's Upper and Lower peninsulas.

State Police Director Col. Peter Munoz said Monday that the men "may have been involved in some other fraudulent activities, but there is no nexus to terrorism or a terrorist threat."

Authorities in both states feared the cell phones could be used in terrorism attacks -- such phones were used in 2004 to detonate terrorist bombs in Madrid. But relatives and friends of the men called them innocent entrepreneurs buying cheap phones for marked-up resale. They were targeted, supporters said, because of their Arab heritage.

OK, I LIED. It's amusing to watch Mehlman re-invent history since, if you Google on the combination of "Iraq" and "stay the course," you get over a million hits. Naturally, many of those won't be directly applicable here, but it shows how prevalent that expression has been.

Now Mehlman is tossing out the new right-wing mantra, "Win by adapting." And just how long has that expression been around? I thought as much.

The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday.

NEW YORK --It takes at least 10 minutes and a large glass of orange juice to wash down all the pills -- morphine, methadone, a muscle relaxant, an antidepressant, a stool softener. Viagra for sexual dysfunction. Valium for his nerves.

Four hours later, Herbert Reed will swallow another 15 mg of morphine to cut the pain clenching every part of his body. He will do it twice more before the day is done.

Since he left a bombed-out train depot in Iraq, his gums bleed. There is more blood in his urine, and still more in his stool. Bright light hurts his eyes. A tumor has been removed from his thyroid. Rashes erupt everywhere, itching so badly they seem to live inside his skin. Migraines cleave his skull. His joints ache, grating like door hinges in need of oil.

So what's the problem, Herb?

Reed believes depleted uranium has contaminated him and his life. He now walks point in a vitriolic war over the Pentagon's arsenal of it -- thousands of shells and hundreds of tanks coated with the metal that is radioactive, chemically toxic, and nearly twice as dense as lead.

Colonel James Naughton of US Army Materiel Command said Iraqi complaints about depleted uranium (DU) shells had no medical basis.

"They want it to go away because we kicked the crap out of them," he told a Pentagon briefing.

If war starts, tonnes of depleted uranium (DU) weapons are likely to be used by British and American tanks and by ground attack aircraft.

There's a certain savage irony to the U.S. having howled ceaselessly about the danger of Saddam Hussein's biological and chemical weapons programs, then contaminating their own troops with massive amounts of DU.

Look on the bright side, though. Depleted uranium and these folks. Yeah, that combination works for me nicely.

Given the extended ragegasm of the Blogging Tories over the recent "More-smoke-gate" Photoshop controversy, one can only imagine their imminent, seething fury over this. By God, the furor should begin any minute now. Yessir, any minute now ... here it comes ... wait for it ... any minute now ...

I have never banned anyone from Angry in the Great White North. I take pride in that. I have had comments that were dead right, dead wrong, and some that were so long that I couldn't be bothered to read them to find out one way or the other. Some people are unfailingly polite, and some amusingly coarse, and some just plain nasty.

But until this comment by Deb Frisch, I have never had one that was calculatingly deceptive and designed to cause hurt to someone else.

So do I ban her IP address? I'm not sure. Post your vote. Know that this blog isn't a democracy, and that I'll take the final decision myself.

Lately we've been hearing a lot about the disgraceful and questionable acts of a very small (and extreme) minority that unfortunately end up tarnishing the good standing of a community at large.

To attribute the actions of a handful of radicals to the behaviour of an entire group of people is, by definition, prejudice, stereotyping, and unbecoming of the liberal society in which we find ourselves...

... I encourage all members of the community (and the broader society) to applaud individuals when they make well-reasoned arguments and to criticize them when they don't. We must marginalize extreme opinion where we can, but we must also engage it as fellow conservatives (and Canadians) that disagree.

Let me respond more succinctly. Dear Mr. Janke: Jesus, Mary, Mother of God, shut the hell up and quit your childish whining. Either ban her, or don't ban her, but make a decision and move on, and stop being such a pathetic, whiny-ass titty baby who's simply trying to milk this issue down to the last drop. In short, grow the fuck up.

Now, where was I? Oh, right, bladder control undergarments ...

DEAR GOD, THE WANKERY CONTINUES as someone has clearly slipped half a kilo of pure Colombian estrogen into the punch bowl and Steve Janke HQ has morphed into a thoroughly gorge-rising episode of "The View": "Don't worry, Steve, it's all right, we're here for you if you need to cry. I love you, man. Group hug, everybody."